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User Research: Visual Focus Enhancement Study
I partnered with the Human Factors team to complete a comprehensive study around visual treatments that affect concentration and cognitive performance in digital interfaces.
My Role: I helped design the prototype with my design counterpart, the study, and complete the analysis but I did not participate in conducting or setting up the actual study with participants.
View Results
Testing Our Focus Hypotheses
Defining Focus
The brain's ability to concentrate or center its attention on something for a sustained period of time, resulting in increased alertness and targeted visual attention on relevant elements rather than distractors.
Eye Tracking Analysis
Measured fixations on target items versus distractor elements, analyzing duration and frequency patterns to quantify visual attention allocation during task completion.
Research Measures
  • Eye tracking with auto-tagging
  • EEG monitoring (mental workload, fatigue, interest)
  • Task performance metrics (completion rate, reading rate, accuracy)
  • Subjective user responses
Broad Hypothesis
Applying a visual treatment to not-in-focus UI (dimming) will result in higher focus than non-treated sessions, evidenced by longer fixation duration and improved task performance.
Study Protocol
01
Set-Up Phase (~30 min)
Participants were fitted with EEG caps and we prepared functional prototypes with two experimental conditions per session.
02
Pre-Session Baseline (~10 min)
Administered ADACL survey to establish baseline mood and alertness levels.
03
Document Reading Task (~15 min x 2)
Participants completed GRE reading passages with comprehension questions under both conditions. Performance metrics included completion percentage and accuracy rates across experimental treatments.
04
Post-Task Assessment (~10 min)
Collected subjective focus ratings.

Data: Performance comparison, fixation patterns, and subjective focus ratings between experimental conditions.
Does a Visual Treatment Help People Focus?
Will people get more done?
Measuring task completion rates and accuracy to determine if visual treatments enhance productivity and cognitive performance during focused work sessions.
Will people feel more alert?
Using EEG measurements and subjective assessments to evaluate changes in mental alertness between treatment conditions.
Will people be less distracted?
Analyzing eye-tracking data to quantify visual attention patterns and measure reduction in distractor fixations during task execution.
No Visual Treatment
Visual Treatment
Findings
Individuals required less mental workload to complete tasks when using the visual treatment
Less mental workload was exerted and reading rate was 1.25 times faster when using the visual treatment condition.
Individuals who have higher "mind-wandering" tendencies benefited even more from the visual treatment.
Eye tracking shows visual treatment helps focus on task right off the bat
Subjective Focus Improvements
Users reported feeling more focused and on-task while using the visual treatment
The visual treatment left users feeling more energized and less fatigued
Study Conclusion
Our findings confirm that optimized visual treatments significantly improve user focus, reduce cognitive workload, and enhance overall performance, leading to a more effective and less fatiguing experience.